quotestemple logo QuotesTemple

Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, who served as consul in the year 63 BC.

Philosopher | Roman

Born: 106 BC in Arpinum, Italy

Died: 43 BC in Formia, Italy

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
age

Advice in old age is foolish for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
age

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
age

Old age: the crown of life, our play's last act.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
age

Rashness belongs to youth prudence to old age.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
age

Hatred is inveterate anger.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hatred is settled anger.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

A man of courage is also full of faith.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Frivolity is inborn, conceit acquired by education.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

A man of courage is also full of faith.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

True nobility is exempt from fear.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
god

Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
god

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Thrift is of great revenue.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

A home without books is a body without soul.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

While there's life, there's hope.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The more laws, the less justice.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

While there's life, there's hope.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

Live as brave men and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

Justice consists in doing no injury to men decency in giving them no offense.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
men

The sinews of war are infinite money.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money! Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nature abhors annihilation.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Freedom is a man's natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The rule of friendship means there should be mutual sympathy between them, each supplying what the other lacks and trying to benefit the other, always using friendly and sincere words.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Laws are silent in time of war.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In time of war the laws are silent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

The sinews of war are infinite money.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

Laws are silent in time of war.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

In time of war the laws are silent.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
war

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Readers Also Loved Quotes From